


Lessons in Savagery

by sifshadowheart



Series: How to Train Your Godling [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Abyss Series - Raythe Reign
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Frey of Asgard Series, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 15:15:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16065809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifshadowheart/pseuds/sifshadowheart
Summary: Formerly published under the "How to Train Your Godling" series.Loki and Frey adventure to a new universe in order to train Frey in how to unleash his most primal and dangerous powers.Slash, Multi, A/U





	Lessons in Savagery

** Lessons in Savagery **

**Part Two of How to Train Your Godling**

**_Frey of Asgard Story_ **

By Sif Shadowheart

Disclaimer:  So in order: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling et al; Marvel to Stan Lee et al; and The Abyss to Raythe Reign.   Anyway the point being this is fanfic and the characters other than OC’s belong to other people and I’m not doing this for profit.  The character profiles for Anarion and Abaddon are straight from Raythe Reign’s website, while the others were ones I came up with one my own for her characters from  _The Abyss and The Abyss 2_ and Icar’s is a combination of the two _._

Note: This is not the only Raythe Reign crossover I’m planning on doing, mainly because I really want to see Frey’s reaction to certain characters like Alric and Stephanus and Emrys…not to mention Loki’s to the Unnamed One.

_Savagery, noun: the quality of being fierce or cruel._

**_ Character Profiles from Raythe Reign’s The Abyss: _ **

_Anarion Gray:_   _Anarion is the only survivor of a series of drug trials run by human scientists and the vampiric Kin. Unable to breed, the Kin are desperate to find a way to further their immortal race. The drug trials were to create a hybrid, but they went terribly wrong. Because of this, Anarion's parents, Mercy and Tranis, turned against the Kin and joined a resistance group. But Anarion's greatest desire is to join the Kin Commander Lord Abaddon's crew on the massive spaceship known as the Abyss. He has loved Abaddon since he met him as a child and the Kin Commander offered to take him away. Will he get his wish?_

 _Lord Abaddon:_   _Lord Abaddon is the leader of the vampiric, immortal Kin people.  He is over 1000 years old, but like all Kin, has no memory of what occurred before that time.  Some terrible incident wiped the Kin's memories clean.  Abaddon was behind the drug trials to create a hybrid.  He offered to take Anarion with him when Anarion was a boy, but the risk of starting an all out war with the humans, he had to let Anarion go.  Instead, he determined to keep close watch on Anarion and have the young man come to him when he was of age.  The Black Heart expedition is his chance._

_Dorn:   Lord Abaddon’s second-in-command.  Sent by Abaddon to train Anarion in the dangerous art of Ruin Jumping, Dorn became enthralled and attached to Anarion, causing a rift between the two friends of a thousand – or perhaps more – years.  With Anarion’s transition to a fully-hybrid Kin with an allergy for both the blood of humans and Abaddon, Dorn has taken up the charge of being Anarion’s primary donor, a position of both trust and intimacy between the two friends and Jumpers._

_Jack:  The journey to the Black Heart of the Universe, the lost planet thought to be the Kin’s homeworld, and the most dangerous Ruin Jump of all, Abaddon calls in the help of an old friend: Jack the Jammer, a powerful and rebellious Kin who commands a group of cutthroat scavengers or Scavs.  Intelligent and cunning, Jack knows better than anyone the dangers that await on a planet such as Black Heart – or Levos where she once rescued a trapped Abaddon from certain death._

_Icar:  The boogey-man of the Kin for the last thousand years, information has recently come to light that suggests everything they thought they knew about the wicked Icar was wrong.  Leaving the question: who _is _the mysterious Kin – and sociopathic madman – calling himself Icar and carrying out atrocities across the universes?  Is it really Icar?  Icar was once Abaddon's second-in-command of the vampiric Kin and his loyal friend. But he went against the Kin Commander over 1000 years ago.  Abaddon vanquished him and all thought he was dead.  But then in a Blood Dream, Anarion remembers being attacked by an 'Icar' who is aiding the Resistance in a terrible plot and the Order of Shoath, an anti-human group, are organizing around him.  Could this be the same Icar that Abaddon defeated long ago or another taking on his name to gain support against Abaddon and the humans? Or someone else…_

**Prologue: Training Continues**

The first lesson had been a simple one, easily  _shown_  as Frey had already experience some of the dangers of worship by living through Gaea exploiting it and splitting the Olympians between their Greek and Roman aspects.

Teaching Frey how to filter it, to bind himself with runes so it couldn’t influence him had been easy enough in a vacant world.

Loki’s bera, Laufey, had made it known before Loki had left to gather up his son for his first string of “lessons” that the King of Jotunheim expected their grandbarn to spend a measure of time on Jotunheim to train with both the armies and in  _invidja_  ways more completely than they’d yet managed.

But…

A few other things by Chaos were needed  _first_ , not the least of which was closure for his son with his “Jack” who had helped – knowingly or not – piece Frey back together after his long imprisonment by Calypso.

First things first however…

It was time he learned other things if Loki had any hope of Frey surviving as the newest deity of Yggdrasil when the time came – or even surviving that long, let alone to claim his dominion.

And the first of them was savagery, Frey’s killer instinct – a legacy of his wizarding heritage as much of his divine - having been mostly curtailed by the world in which he grew and lived for the chapters of his pre-immortal life, only truly unleashed for a short time in another world entirely.

There was a deep darkness inside his son, a gift from Loki as much as it was from Thanatos or James or even Lily who was no wilting flower.

It was time Frey learned to both control it as he’d always done as well as how to unleash it when it was called for.

Frey had not… _dealt_  with his actions in Calypso’s universe well.

With his bloodlust and icy rage.

If Frey had only been a wizard, the day his darkness would be needed was likely never to come.

As an immortal and future god, that day will likely come sooner rather than later or never.

And if Frey didn’t know how to handle it, it was a near certainty that his darkness would consume him and change him utterly, a fate they had already had too close of a brush with thanks to Thanatos’s quest and the events of the Triwizard Tournament.

Such a situation was simply unacceptable for Loki.

Thanks to the gift of their heritage, however, Loki had located the  _perfect_  place in which to teach Frey how to let his darkness free – as well as how to keep it bridled when necessary.

The only downside he could see was the chance of being found by what  _passed_ for a minor deity in that universe.

But given that said deity didn’t ever  _remember_  it’s own near-divine nature…it was a risk Loki was more than willing to take.

…

 

** Chapter One: Ruin **

The blood of the night still painted the strange tech-based world – a massive megalopolis that was completely covered by a single city – when Frey and his father Loki stepped from the paths of the in-between and onto the surface of the planet called  _Levos_ , located in a far-distant planetary system in an even farther-flung universe from Frey’s home.

Time barely passed between the two, making it good for their purpose of training his new powers and even some of the old, while it being one of the universes mostly abandoned by any ruling deity bumped it up to ideal.

There were no organized pantheons here to ask inconvenient questions about bursts of powers and trespassing immortals…or try and force them to leave.

Hells, there were barely governments to speak of let alone  _gods_ , most things being controlled by an advanced space-faring people known to most as simply The Kin with a few scattered fringes such as the modern Earth – and the resistance  _against_  the Kin there that had sprung up after Earth’s discovery by the advanced species.  Loki had entertained himself in this universe once before, learning its secrets and reveling in its technology and what small doses of sorcery he managed to find before journeying home.  To them, it was eons ago, long before anyone had ever heard of Lord Commander Abaddon or the Order of Shoath.

To him, it was last month, albeit time had stretched for glorious decades in one world while a mere day or two passed in his world.

And while he was there for that short – to him – period of their time, Loki had borne witness to a sight few would ever see, that of a new species being engineered and then unleashed on an unsuspecting world in a far-flung corner of a little-traveled universe.

Their creator called them many things – Asadar, a mad scientist who had kept himself alive, if insane, through massive cloning and a technology Loki didn’t understand – his insectoid creations.

Loki called them death made flesh as they tore and ripped and devoured all that was in their path, which in a frighteningly short amount of time came to include both anyone who tried to “Ruin Jump” the planet as even the Lord Commander had discovered, let alone any of what the Kin and humans alike called  _scavs_ , and each other, though they were also cunning to the point that they didn’t feast on each other to extinction.

Fascinating indeed.

And the  _perfect_  creatures to teach his son how to get in touch with his inner darkness, his suppressed savagery.  Then in the end, how to control it  _without_  locking it away totally.

After all, no one ever said Loki nor Frey were  _tame_  gods.

It was time Frey grew to accept and embrace that fact and facet of himself, rather than shun it until he imploded and took whoever was unfortunate enough to be near him – such as Loki’s grandchildren – down with him.

Especially with the power boost he received with gaining his immortality.

It was nothing like what he would gain when he Ascended but it was still more than Frey was used to channeling, even with a good portion of it focusing on locking his godhood away.

“Death.”  Frey said, drawing Loki from his thoughts, his bright green eyes squinting a bit in the light of two of the suns before he cast a simple spell to shield them.  “A shit-ton of it, and recently.”

Loki nodded, sending out a seeking dart of his powers for a place that would provide the bones of housing and supplies for them for the next years.

“In this world, a catastrophic event wiped the memories of an entire race.”  Loki explained succinctly.  “Leaving them to recover what information and technology they can from visiting the dead worlds left behind.  They call it  _Ruin Jumping_.”  He waved his hands around him.  “And it’s not an occupation for the faint of heart.  That way.”  He told his son, pointing towards where something like a bunker – and uninfested by the insects – was supposed to be according to the answer his power gave him.  “We’ll find a place to set up a camp and then get started on the first leg of your training, little prince.”

“I’m taller – and more muscular – than you are, Far.”  Frey told him dryly then added: “And that’s where the majority of the death sensation is coming from.  The,” Frey frowned a bit, not having the species name for the deaths he’d sensed. “Recent deaths anyway.  Insect deaths are all over the place, despite there being no sign of them except for the drying blood, and a whole lot of activity underground.”

“There should be.”  Loki said as they struck out at a controlled lope, neither immortal even breaking a sweat under the punishing light and heat of the suns thanks to both their biology and their powers.  His shapeshifting made him as impervious to sun and heat as an Aesir – which considering they lived in the Summer Realm was saying a lot – rather than the intolerance his Jotun form would possess.  “If I read the planet right we’ve come at the end of an attempt to Jump this world by both the sanctioned Jump teams from the Kin and scavengers or  _scavs_  – and the activity drew our unfriendly neighbors/targets from their caverns below the surface and allowed them to hunt, feed, and mate freely.  Now they’ll hibernate for the next little while until we  _allow_  our scent to draw them out and wake them up.”

Frey did some quick math based on what his own powers were telling him of the death cycles of this place his father had taken them to.  And what he came to wasn’t pleasant.  It was no wonder they were in a frenzy by the time the “Jump teams” arrived.

“A thousand years without a meal other than each other?”  He let out a soundless whistle, easily keeping up with his father despite the sand shifting under his feet.  “And us less than a year into their hibernation.  Sounds like a party.  What’ll we do while we wait?”

“Train.”  Loki said with a roll of his eyes.  “I’d rather  _not_  lose you to one of the monsters in the dark because you got cocky or overconfident now that you won’t die by most means.  That doesn’t mean you can’t be  _killed_ , my little prince.”

“Point taken.”

“Good.”  Loki narrowed his eyes at the structure that pierced the sky of Levos like a dagger thrusting from the ground.  “This will do…once we’ve  _adjusted_  things a bit anyway.”

“Why do I have a feeling I’m about to have to do a ton of magical cleaning?”  Frey sighed, rolling his shoulders a bit.  He was feeling loose after the run…and having no one about but his Far was giving him a sense of freedom and of being unfettered that he hadn’t experienced in years…at least while totally sane.

“Because I didn’t help raise an idiot, my son.”

“Right.”

…

Putting both of their backs – well their magic, but same difference for a pair of mages – into cleaning, warding, and stocking a base, it only took them a day or so to finished preparing for their stay, the length of which Loki was being infuriatingly close-lipped about.

Frey  _did not_  take that as a good sign, which was wise of him and the result of more than one “surprise” in the past which hadn’t quite gone the way his father had planned.

Loki  _was_  the god of Chaos after all…his plans often took on a life of their own no matter how innocuous.

 _Chaos_ , Loki had told him often and with a passion usually reserved for the breadth of Thor’s dunderheadedness, was the oldest primordial.  From  _Chaos_  came change, came  _life_ , came  _magic_.  Parthenogenesis said his adult-mind, perhaps the first and rawest form of it.  But that was his adult-self.  His child-self drank those lessons down alongside tales of adventure through the cosmos and the ideals of just rule.

It didn’t take long after their finishing of their “base” for Frey to meet the creatures his father had brought him to fight, to learn how to unleash himself – and then pull it back in when the time came.  How to be savage…but not lose himself or anyone he cared for in the process.  It wasn’t easy.  In fact, Frey would venture that it was one of the hardest lessons his Far had ever had to pound into his head thus far in his life, second to how to put himself back together after being shattered by his captivity and trust himself around his children again.

A difficulty compounded by Loki’s refusal to do more than stand around as  _bait_  for the monsters that dwelled on Levos.

Loki would pick him up, patch him up, scold him over being too slow or too distracted or losing himself too deeply to the black rage that dwelled in the heart of Frey…and then they would start the exercise all over again.

There were the innumerable small insects that Frey met  _first_.

Small and black, a form of mutated beetle or cockroach from what he could tell from studying a dead corpse that he managed – with no small effort – to retrieve before it was scavenged by its fellows, they had two main abilities.

Four inches long and about half as wide, they have eight legs and pincers that secret an acid – as the burns he got the first go-around proved.

Never before had Frey been gladder that he was immortal…and a mage at that.

Granted,  _Fiendfyre_  couldn’t be his only response to a danger that he couldn’t overcome, anymore than his ice could…but it  _was_  damn effective at keeping him from getting devoured alive by bugs.

Their second ability was the stuff of nightmares.

A swarm of hundreds – or thousands – of the fucking things could  _latch_  together to form a bigger organism.

And then there was the toxic, paralytic gas…

Big enough to give Frey nightmares and Loki to laugh his ass off at the disgusted horror on his son’s face.

And those were just the  _first_  inhabitant from the planet that Frey encountered.

There were more,  _many_  more.

From what they were able to tell the further into the planet they went – five miles or so had been hallowed out and formed into the planet-wide city of Levos, the planet called  _Sistemos_  according to Loki – either out or down, the smaller bugs had  _started_  at least in hydroponic gardens.

Frey couldn’t come up with  _any_  kind of explanation for the others beyond either genetic manipulation by a scientist – which Loki said was likely from what he’d learned on his previous, and only, visit to this universe – or evolution.

Though  _what_  could have lived here before that required some of the mutations Frey had seen he didn’t know.

And the force-field that one species in particular claimed rather settled his bets on the former idea than the latter.

Worse… _they learned_.

It took more than a year…but they eventually learned that the pair weren’t worth the meal they represented and stopped trying to reclaim the pair’s base which had spread to encompass the entirety of a building above-ground.

And then they started laying  _traps_  for them when on Loki’s insistence after a period of rest and lessons on things other than tapping into Frey’s darker side, they ventured back into the below-ground levels.

Even for a son of Loki and a god raised on Asgard, the tech represented by Levos was awe-inspiring.

Whole  _lives_  preserved by cubes filled with memories in glowing streams of light that were some sort of a cross between a recharging station and upload/download access.

For that alone, the ability to  _learn_  from reliving the life of a scientist or a physician or a warrior, Frey would have been willing to dare the bugs.

Even if his  _Fiendfyre_  spell got more practice than Loki had originally planned in the process, the god found himself helpless to deny the emerald-green begging kitty-eyes of his son…even less so when Frey would shapeshift into an  _actual_  kitten, shapeshifting being one of the skills Frey hadn’t practiced nearly enough before freezing into his immortality beyond Frey-to-jaguar or Frey-to-Jotun-Frey.  It took time to come as easily as the skill was to Loki, and even then Loki thought that his son wouldn’t play with it as much as he did himself.  Frey’s identity had been shaped too long around himself in the form he was born in, instead of shapeshifting from toddlerhood as Loki had.  Yes, Frey had often taken on his “Animagus” form of a jaguar, and then his natural Jotun form once Laufey taught both of them how.

But Loki doubted Frey would ever spend years at a time as Lady-Frey the way Loki would embrace his preferred female form, or enjoy slipping from one skin to another as he did.

And that was perfectly fine with the god.

Still, Loki had an idea for another lesson that his son would need to learn – something that would help him if he was insistent on “laying low” and playing “agent-of-Loki” on Earth.

He would have to learn how to truly  _be_  someone else, to be perfect in authenticity.

A lesson for another day, and one that he had a most excellent idea of how to carry out.

In the meantime, Frey still needed more practice with his darker-self.

If for no other reason than his son had yet to tap into his  _darkest_  self, something that Loki was beginning to wonder was even possible without reason – real stakes as it were.

And while he was known to be wicked and scheming at times…Loki refused to do that to his son, to bring back the fear and shadows that had dogged Frey’s steps for years after returning from his long – to Frey – absence.

He would have to settle for teaching him to manage his darker self…and hope that in the end, if the darkest version of Frey was ever roused, that what little Loki had taught him would help his beautiful little prince come back from the deepest depths.

Loki wasn’t  _certain_  what dominion would be Frey’s yet, though the Norns had whispered here-and-there, given hints and clues.

But he  _was_  certain that it could be nothing less than magnificent, even if it was terrifying.

…

** Chapter Two: Jumping Levos **

_Note: The first section of this chapter comes straight from The Abyss: Leaving Earth, chapters Eleven, Twelve with additional dialogue from Sixteen and Seventeen later in the chapter._

Anarion closed his eyes as his Ruin Jump Pod jolted as it slid onto the ramp that would launch it and him into space.  He could feel Levos, red as blood, spinning beneath the Abyss.  Soon he, Jack, and Dorn would be dropped and streak towards the surface and land on one of the pads nearest the quickest route to Level 33.  Leonais, Rasatz, Garin and, more importantly, Abaddon, would remain with the ship.

“Your heart rate is elevated, Anarion,” Nico’s voice came over his comm and drowned out the the grinding sound his pod made as it was moved towards the rapidly opening hangar bay doors.

“It always does that, Nico, at the start of a mission.  Nerves,” Anarion said with a smile even as his eyes remained closed.

“No, it doesn’t.  You’re normally very calm, but not this time.  Why?” Nico asked, his voice dropping almost conspiratorially.

Anarion opened his mouth to answer when another voice came on the comm.

“I’ll take it from here, Nico,” Abaddon said as he joined the line. His voice was warm and smoky.  Anarion wanted to wrap himself in it.

“Hey, I wondered when I would hear from you,” Anarion said, his smile becoming larger.  He imagined the Kin Commander’s beautiful face behind his closed eyelids.

“As if I could stay away,” Abaddon said, but there was a touch of melancholy in his voice that he could not completely hide. Anarion knew why.  It was because they were separated.  “I think I can slow his heart rate down, Nico.  Just leave it to me.”

“Of course, Lord Abaddon.  Though I would point out that Anarion’s heart rate has risen even higher since hearing  your voice,” Nico said with amusement.

“Be still my beating heart!”  Anarion laughed.

“I promise I’ll calm him down, Nico,” Abaddon said indulgently.

“Go talk to Leonais, Nico.  I’m sure that he’s bereft about not going down to Levos,” Anarion urged him.

“He’s standing right beside me. And you’re correct. He has a completely hangdog expression.  He really wishes he were on this mission with you,” Nico said.

“Tell him, I’m glad he’s not.  We need him in tip top shape for Black Heart,” Anarion said.

“He doesn’t look convinced, Anarion.  Even Rasatz and Garin are on his side this time,” Nico said.

“It had to be a small team, Nico,” Abaddon said.  “Jack’s big gun can only protect so many.”

 _And we can’t risk the whole Ruin Jump Team down there_ , Anarion sighed.   _Especially if I’m wrong and this whole memory cube business ends up being a bust.  But I don’t think I’m wrong.  What would be worse is if I’m right, but we still can’t get to Level 33 or don’t return from it with the information._

“Right, of course, Lord Abaddon.  I’ll remind them.”  Nico was in Med Bay, monitoring everyone’s vitals while Abaddon was on the Bridge.  Anarion wondered if Abaddon’s officers were careful to ignore any personal asides their Kin Commander made to him when they spoke.

“Go on then, Nico,” Abaddon urged. He clearly wanted to speak to Anarion alone.

“Med Tech Nico Flavian is signing off.  Safe travels, Anarion,” Nico said and the line became all the quieter from his absence.

“We’re finally alone.  That seems to happen more often than not when there is the blackness of space between us,” Abaddon murmured.

“We have so got to stop meeting this way.”  Anarion’s heart rate eased as he allowed the Kin Commander’s vocal presence to flow over him.  

“In the darkness of space when you are heading towards a dangerous and unknown future?  Somehow, Anarion, I think that is the lynchpin of our relationship,” Abaddon sighed.

“Probably, but I did think -- I did  _hope_  -- we would be doing this into the void stuff together.  But Dorn is right.  We can’t risk you on this mission even with your incredible skills.  If it goes south, you need to be there to guide your people against the Enemy,” Anarion said.

“And how well do you think I will do that if something happens to you?” Abaddon answered softly.

“Nothing is going to happen to me, because you are going to be in my ears the whole way, warning me of what’s ahead,” Anarion said with a confidence he did not wholly feel.

“The truth is that some planets react  _badly_  if I am on them.  The security is worse than it would have been if I had stayed away.  Levos is one of those worlds,” Abaddon confessed.  “Perhaps the Enemy is behind that or …”

“I think Levos is one of  _your_  worlds, Abaddon. Not Kin, but your own people’s,” Anarion said.  “It might be reacting more in your presence, because it recognizes you.”

“And what a welcome wagon it sends out to greet its one remaining son!  One has to wonder what I did to earn such enmity from my own people that the defenses on those planets become that much more virulent when I am around,” Abaddon said. There was a hint of anger and anguish in his tone.

“From what I saw in the Blood Dream you were well respected.  But your people were being changed into those  _things._   It could be that they realized if anyone could defeat them it would be you,” Anarion said.  “So they set the defenses before their minds completely failed.”

There was another cranking sound and Anarion tensed as his pod jolted once more.  The ramp was being extended out into space so that the pod shot out of the Abyss and fell away from its mass quickly.  

“You are nervous, Anarion,” Abaddon remarked as Anarion clenched his hands into fists.

“I don’t have diapers strapped to me and I’m not sure the Teklan suit is as good protection,” Anarion quipped.

Abaddon let out a laugh, but it sounded as forced as Anarion’s joke had. Finally, he sobered and said firmly, “This mission is -- in its way -- not different than any other.”

Anarion shook his head. “We both know that’s not true, Abaddon. I’m not afraid for myself.  It’s just that this matters.  It’s not locating some new tech. It’s finding out the  _truth_.  I have to succeed.”

“And you will.”  Abaddon was silent for a moment and then he added, “I’m with you, Anarion.”

Anarion touched the side of his helmet. It was where Abaddon’s voice seemed to emanate from though he knew it was merely the location of the speaker.  “I feel it.  Ever since we made love, I can  _feel_  you more than before.”

“As can I,” Abaddon nearly whispered.

“We have a connection.  I mean, we’ve always had one, but its stronger now,” Anarion said.  “Or is that just in my head?”

“No, I believe you are right.  I can feel a hum in my body. It is  _you_ ,” Abaddon said.

“Same thing here,” Anarion said.  His hand moved to over the center of his chest where he was feeling that humming running through him right at that moment.  “When this is all done, just think of how life is going to be for us.  We’re going to be  _together_.”

“Yes, we will get to learn about each other more and more,” Abaddon agreed.

“Not that there’s much about me you don’t know already,” Anarion laughed.

“You are not as open a book as you think you are.  There is much depth yet for me to plumb,” Abaddon said.  “An eternity’s worth, I think.”

“Same here.  Looks like Dorn and Jack’s pods just disengaged.  I’m the slow poke,” Anarion said after the virtual intelligence in the pod reported that two pods were away and ahead of him.

“Dorn and Jack will not let anything happen to you,” Abaddon said, and Anarion knew he was trying to convince himself as much as Anarion.  

“I’m going to take care of them, too, Abaddon.  You know I’m good at this,” Anarion reminded him gently.

“You are the  _best_.  And that is why you are going,” Abaddon corrected and Anarion felt a wash of warmth go through him at that praise.  “But despite my determination to not clip your wings and to let you face the dangers you are best suited for, I wish very much that you were not going to Levos.”

“I know.  I wish none of us had to,” Anarion said.  

“But it must be done.  Your argument for a small group going to Levos was quite persuasive to everyone.  Including me,” Abaddon said.

Anarion let out a mirthful laugh.  “Yeah, this is my  _own_  fault, isn’t it?”

“What you are doing for the Kin and Humanity cannot be overstated enough,” Abaddon said.  

As Anarion felt the pod tilt back in its final descent before it was released from the Abyss and plummeted down to Levos’ surface, Anarion remembered how the rest of that evening at the Blood Bar had gone. It was just twelve hours later and yet he felt like eons had passed.  

“You know that’s totally insane, don’t you?” Leonais had broken the silence that had fallen over the group after Anarion’s proposal that they go to Levos. “I mean really, really nuts.  Diapers are not going to save us from those bugs.”

Anarion cracked a smile. “No, but I have a feeling that Jack’s improved her big gun since then.”  He turned to her.  “Tell me that you haven’t been thinking about Levos and tinkering with your tech for all these years just waiting for another chance to go down there and get those memory cubes?”

Jack tossed her head and snorted.  “Maybe.”

“That means yes,” Garin translated with a shake of her blond head.   

“I  _may_  have made some minor improvements that will have those bugs more than scattering when I turn on my big gun.  Their little bodies might just implode if they wait around us for too long,” Jack said with a satisfied smile.

“Eweh! Bug guts everywhere,” Leonais laughed.

Dorn’s jaw clenched.  “Anarion, Levos could  _decimate_  the Ruin Jump Team. I understand wanting to know what was in Icar’s head  --”

“Why did you want to find Black Heart in the first place?” Anarion interrupted him, asking the group.  “Forget Icar. Forget the Enemy.  Why did you want to go there?”

“To find out past,” Garin said.

“To find out what happened to us,” Rasatz added.

“To see if we can’t undo the sterility that’s affected our race since then,” Dorn said.

“We’re dying a little bit every day,” Garin sighed.  “We may be immortal, but there are no more of us.  Every single person we lose is one we cannot replace.  There have been no Kin children in a thousand years.”

“Knowing your past may not be able to undo that,” Tranis said.  He had finished his drink and was staring forward.  “You do understand that what you may find may not be pleasant.  The answers you seek may give you no comfort.”

“We have had this discussion many times, Tranis,” Abaddon said.  “But to be in darkness, to not know, is worse.”

Tranis surprisingly shook his head.  “It isn’t.  I used to think that a question unanswered was a great loss.  That’s what led me to help you, to create the serum that -- that made Anarion what he is today.”

“You cannot regret it then!” Garin cried.

Anarion grimaced and waved a hand in the air.  “My father  _does_  regret it, Garin.  That’s what the Resistance is all about.”

“No, that’s not true,” Tranis said. He had turned and was looking at Anarion intently.  “Why do you think --”

“Dad, you held me up as the poster child for everything you claimed the Kin wanted to do wrong to humanity,” Anarion tried to keep some of the old bitterness from creeping into his voice. He didn’t want to have this become a fight between himself and Tranis.

“The changes in you from the serum saved your life, Anarion,” Tranis said.  “I do not regret that. What I regret is that it … it also took some of your humanity away.”

“I don’t miss it, if anything really is gone,” Anarion snapped.  He felt one of Abaddon’s hands lightly press against his shoulder.  The Kin Commander wasn’t saying anything, because he knew it would just inflame their argument, but Anarion felt his caring.  “I feel as human as you do, Dad.  You are the only one that feels I am  _missing_  something.”

Tranis’ head lowered.  “I didn’t realize you thought that I felt that way.”

“You  _do_.  You should think on it a bit. You’ll see I’m right.  But that’s not my point here.”  Anarion cleared his throat and leaned forward with his elbows pressing against his knees.

“And your point is that our answers lay on Levos with all those memory cubes?” Garin asked.

“Not those memory cubes.”  Anarion touched Icar’s cube.  “ _This_  memory cube.  The answers are  _in_  here.  Icar -- the  _real_  Icar -- was there for all of what happened to you. He clearly wasn’t affected like the rest of you were -- or at least he wasn’t when he made this memory cube.”  He let that sink in.  What had happened to them might be laid out in this cube.  Who the Enemy was and how to defeat him might also be in this cube.  All they needed was the power to access it.   Levos had that power.  He put those thoughts into words, “Icar knew what happened to all of you.  Icar knew who this real enemy we’re facing is.  We could race blindly to Black Heart with a hope and a prayer that we can get down there and somehow destroy the Enemy and his army and retrieve answers about your past or …”

“Or we go to Levos and find it all out there,” Jack finished for him.   “The kid’s got a point.”

“Levos is a deathtrap,” Dorn growled.

“So is Black Heart,” Jack pointed out.  “But at least at Levos we know what we’re up against.  We know the terrain and the enemies.   I know where we’re going.   I can get us to Level 33.  We juice the memory cube up and we get the Hell out of there.  Black Heart is a fucking black hole.  And with the Enemy waiting for us there like a spider in the center of a web -- Hell, Levos sounds like a breeze in comparison.”

Anarion worried that because the words came from Jack that Dorn would outright dismiss them, but he was surprised when Dorn nodded after a moment.  “But we can’t all go down.  We can’t risk the entire Ruin Jump Team.”

“You know I’m game,” Leonais chuckled.

Nico looked rather pale and he curled tighter against the Kin. But Anarion knew that Nico understood that Jumping was more than a job, it was a calling.  And this was to find out crucial information.  

“Or course, you’re game.  Any hair-brained scheme is like catnip to you,” Rasatz groaned.  “But I’m in.”

“And, of course, I am as well,” Garin said.  “I have such  _fond_  memories of those bloody bugs.”

“Didn’t you hear me say that we can’t  _all_  go?” Dorn asked.   “It should be a small team.  No more than three people.”

“Oh, come on, Dorn!  You can’t make any of us stay back!” Leonais cried.  “Levos kicked our ass last time.  We have to kick hers back.”

“Hold up, Dorn.  Before we start deciding who is going and who isn’t, we haven’t heard from the most important person here,” Garin said.  “What do you think, Abaddon?  Levos literally was almost a deathtrap for you last time. You have any desire to go back there?”

Abaddon was looking down at the dark cube in his lap.  “None whatsoever.  But Anarion is right.  We have in our hands potentially the greatest threat to the Enemy: the truth. He went to the trouble of violating our minds and altering our memories.  What could be in here could lead us to a more certain victory.”

“Or a more knowledgeable defeat,” Jack said with a quirked smile. “But we can’t turn away from it.”

“No, we can’t,” Abaddon answered softly.

Jack cracked her back and grinned. “Don’t you worry, Abaddon.  None of us is going to die as bug food.  That’s simply not the way fate is going to play out.  So who else is going down to the surface?  Clearly, I’m one of the three so that leaves two more.”

And it had been decided that Dorn and Anarion were the two best to go.  Tranis had gone incredibly silent. Abruptly, he had stood up. His whole body was thrumming with anger.  He turned towards Anarion and Abaddon.

“I know I can’t stop you, Anarion.  You are determined to go.  But if anything happens to my son, Abaddon, you know who I will  _blame_ ,” Tranis said, his face white and strained.  Then he had turned on his heel and walked away.

“I think I’m beginning to like Tranis,” Jack said.  “Threatening Abaddon and all.  He’s a hoot.”

The next twelve hours had been filled with frantic planning and then an attempt to rest.  After Abaddon had instructed the Abyss’ crew to change course from Black Heart to Levos, he had informed the crew over the comm the reason why.  He did not speak of Icar or the cube, but stated that Levos held vital information to get them to Black Heart’s surface safely and to defeat the usurper who held their planet hostage.

Anarion had watched Abaddon speaking in awe and a little sadness.  When the Kin Commander spoke to his crew, he was more than simply a man.  He was more than a leader, too.  He was the one that held their lives in his hands and they eagerly would do whatever he asked.

_Even if that means dying._

“I can still feel you in my arms, Anarion,” Abaddon’s voice drew him out of his memory.

“Yeah?  I wish we could have done more than just have you hold me,” Anarion said.  But they hadn’t because of the off chance that Anarion might have a bad reaction down on Levos.

“There will be plenty of time for that,” Abaddon assured him.

_I hope so._

Anarion’s eyes opened.  The blackness of space surrounded him.  Levos glinted redly below him.  He checked the memory cube that was strapped in beside him.  His Teklan gloves clicked against the cube’s hard surface.

_You better have the answers, Icar.  We’re risking alot to see what you have to say._

“Just about to disengage,” Anarion told Abaddon unnecessarily.

“Hold the pod steady once you leave the Abyss.  The pods have a tendency to want to wander and want to clank against the side of the ship,” Abaddon told him.

“I won’t chip the Abyss’ paint job,” Anarion chuckled.

There was solid cha-chunk sound and Anarion knew he was away.  He immediately took the control stick and directed the pod a safe distance away from the Abyss’ massive bulk.  He joined Dorn’s yellow pod, which reminded Anarion of a hornet, and Jack’s battered red pod.  She had painted a skull and crossbones on the back being pissed on by her pet Vas.  Anarion grinned.

“Joining the others,” Anarion told Abaddon.

“Nice of you to get your ass in gear, Anarion,” Jack’s voice came over the comm.

“Didn’t you choose the massage option on your disengagement?” Anarion asked sweetly.

“I thought you left Abaddon back on the ship unless you and that pod have a relationship I just don’t want to know about!” she retorted with a husky laugh.

“You’re not one to talk. I saw you caressing your big gun earlier,” Anarion shot back.

“You’re going to want to caress her, too, before the end of this missing. Trust me, baby, you’ll want her  _inside_  of you so that those bugs stay far, far away,” Jack replied.

“Focus, people,” Dorn’s voice silenced them both.  “The window for the Big Drop is coming.”

The window was an area where there were the least laser defenses. He could see the satellites that held the lasers drifting almost lazily around the planet.  They were out of range, but the moment their pods strayed into the satellites’ orbit, the area would be filled with deadly laser fire that could rip apart a pod in seconds. A trickle of sweat ran down Anarion’s temple.  The Big Drop was the straight shot they would take down to the planet’s surface.

“Remember that none of us was ever able to find Levos’ Central Command Center, let alone disarm its defense Grid.  Keep it tight,” Dorn reminded them.   “Imagine that you’re flying through the eye of a needle, because that’s about as much room as we’ve got before we’re turned into space junk.”

“The window is on our nine-o’clock.  Swinging by in five,” Anarion began the countdown as he poised one finger on the pod’s engines to fire them at the right moment.  “Four.  Three.  Two.  One.  Blast off.”

Anarion squeezed the trigger and his pod shot down towards the open space.  He knew the others were following after him.  As Point, he was going first, even up here.  Anarion’s nervousness fell away as his mind totally focused on the task at hand.  There were a few stray lasers shot their way, but the satellites were too far away and too slow to hit them.  Anarion’s lips curled into a smile.  They were going to make it.  Unlike Telos IV, this was not going to be a total cockup.

“You’re doing well, Anarion,” Abaddon’s voice was full of relief and pride.

“Let’s hope our luck holds,” Anarion said.

His pod streaked through space and entered Levos’ atmosphere.  The heat of entry shut off any view he had of the outside for a time.  Anarion concentrated on his instruments instead. They were all on course.  They were headed towards a landing pad on the side of one of Levos’ many buildings. Jack had shown him and Dorn maps that she and her crew had made the last time they were on Levos.  

“This landing pad is on the building that houses Level 33 and the cubes,” Jack had tapped the hologram of the building they were going to land on. “It has a large atrium.  Empty space pretty much down the center of it.  Level thirty-three, however, is about ten stories below where the atrium ends.  But I think we can repel down to the bottom and then make our way to Level thirty-three from the stairs here.”

“Looks like there is an elevator shaft that runs directly to that level from the top,” Anarion had pointed out.

Dorn had shaken his head.  “The shafts are superhighways for the bugs.  We don’t dare drop down into one of them.”

“So it looks straightforward enough,” Anarion had said.

“Kid, with the lights off and chittering bugs everywhere,  _nothing_  is straightforward,” Jack had remarked with a shake of her shaved head.

Anarion snapped out of the memory as his screen cleared of the hot flames of reentry.  He could see the cityscape that made up Levos.  His breath caught at the cloud-clawing buildings that were everywhere the eye could see.  The architecture was clearly alien though lovely.  There were massive bronze-colored domes and arching bridges connecting them.

“Holy shit,” Jack’s voice suddenly broke out over the comm.

“What?” Anarion asked, not seeing any danger around them.

“What’s wrong?” Abaddon’s voice was immediately tense.

“Look at the landing pad, Anarion.   _Our_  landing pad,” she said with a high laugh. “Doesn’t appear like there’s much room for us on it, now does there?

Anarion scanned the horizon and caught sight of it. Now he knew why she had swore.  On the pad where they were to land, there was a ship.  A ship like nothing Anarion had ever seen before.

“Was that there before?” Dorn asked.  “Is it a ship of one of the old inhabitants here?”

“Ah, no, Sir Pretty Boy, don’t you see its exhaust?”  Jack let out another laugh.  “That ship has  _just landed._ ”

“Get out of their line of sight!” Dorn ordered.

Anarion was already banking.  He streaked towards a nearby building that would shield them from visual sight of the strange craft.  Dorn and Jack followed closely after him.  Adrenaline spiked in his system as he expected at every moment the alien ship to rise and come after them.  The pods weren’t designed for combat.  They were designed for speed and maneuverability.  His breath caught in his throat as his eyes scanned the monitors.

“They aren’t coming,” Anarion said.  He hadn’t realized he had said it out loud.  

His sensors showed that the craft remained where it was. There was no movement to indicate anyone had seen them though that seemed impossible.  They had come down in its direct line of sight.  

“You should get out of there, Anarion,” Abaddon growled.

“They didn’t see us,” Anarion countered.  “And the pods have too small a profile to show up sensor arrays.  At least,  _normally_  that would be the case.”

“Anarion,” Abaddon’s voice was tense.  Anarion could almost feel the Kin Commander’s love for him like a physical presence that wanted to rip him away from danger.

“I know,” Anarion said, his voice softening.  “But it’s okay.  Really, I think it’s okay.”

“How could it possibly be okay?” Abaddon sounded disbelieving.

But still the ship remained where it was.

“How did a ship that big get past the defense grid?” Anarion asked.

“I don’t see any obvious damage to their hull,” Dorn agreed.  

Anarion pulled up the image of the ship and confirmed Dorn’s assessment.  The ship had a sinuous appearance.  The outer skin was a deep, midnight blue that seemed to shimmer in the fading light. There was no evidence of openings, no windscreen even, other than the open door leading onto an empty gangway.

“Dammit. How are they here?  Actually, forget that,  _why_  are they here?  Actually, fuck that!  I don’t care about either of those things. They are in our way,” Jack hissed.  

“It’s too much of a coincidence that they are exactly where we need to be,” Anarion said.  “Abaddon, does the Abyss have any records of a ship like that?”

The pod’s database was limited. Perhaps that the Abyss would have something.  There was a momentary hesitation, but then Abaddon spoke, “We do.”

“And?” Dorn asked.  “Whose is it?”

“One of ours,” Abaddon said, his voice tight.  “Hold on.”

The line with the Abyss went silent and Anarion wondered what was going on.

“One of  _ours_?  What does he mean one of  _ours_?  That’s not like any Kin ship I’ve ever seen.  And no Scav would have the scratch to build something like that,” Jack said.

“Wait a minute,” Dorn said, his voice soft and shocked.  “It can’t be.  He can’t mean what I think he means.”

“Don’t keep us all in defense, Dorn, spit it out!” Jack cried.

But then the line came back on from the Abyss.  Abaddon said, “Forgive the delay, but I needed to move to a secure location and double check the Abyss’ findings.”

“What’s the deal with the ship?” Anarion asked.  “You obviously recognize it, but it doesn’t look like any Kin vessel I’m aware of and – well, I’m a fan.  Is this something new you’ve got going on?”

“Very new,” Abaddon answered.  “So new that this ship shouldn’t exist.  It’s called the Deathstryke.  This ship is supposed to be only in research and development stage.  The prototype isn’t even in line to be produced until the next Earth year.  Its main purpose is its cloaking ability.”

“So they can slip through a planet’s defense and not get shredded by the defense grid? Well, looks like it’s a smashing success!  Shame we don’t have it,” Jack said.

“Could they have gotten ahead of schedule and built it?” Anarion knew that was unlikely and Abaddon confirmed it.

“Not without me knowing about it,” Abaddon answered.  “We would have been using them on Black Heart, if so.”

“You know who this has to be, Abaddon,” Dorn hissed.  “It’s the Order of Shoath.  They have sympathizers everywhere.  Even, evidently, in our shipyards.”

“And up our ass on the Abyss, too, since they showed up here,” Jack pointed out.

“Do you think they know about the cube?” Anarion asked.  He cursed himself for urging Abaddon to bring it to the Blood Bar.   Ran and the Teglis brothers had been there.  They were likely sympathizers with the Order, but the truth was that it could have been anyone.

_They want to enslave humans just like Dad has always feared. I wonder if he realizes that Abaddon is the only force stopping them from doing so?_

“We have to assume that they do.  Why else would they reveal themselves and their stolen ship design like this?” Abaddon asked.

“They could be here because of the ship plans that Jack’s people saw,” Dorn said.  “Perhaps one of your crew, Jack, decided to sell that information –”

“My people wouldn’t betray me!”  Jack argued.

“That’s what every leader thinks!” Dorn snapped back.

“My people keep their traps shut. Anyone who fucks up gets put in the airlock and flushed out into space like the garbage they are,” Jack growled.  “Maybe you should be doing a bit of that, Abaddon.  Get those Shoath bastards in line.”

“Maybe I should,” Abaddon’s voice was tight with anger.  He took a deep breath.  “But we have this issue before us now.  I am thinking that discretion is the better part of valor.  You need to hide yourselves somewhere until –”

“We can’t turn back,” Anarion interrupted him.  

“There are only three of you,” Abaddon stressed.  “The prototype could fit at least a dozen armed Kin in full Teklan battle armor.  Who knows how many this ship can carry.”

“We won’t get a clear shot out of here until 0800 tomorrow, Abaddon.  That’s a lot of time to kill and quite a bit of shit can hit the fan between now and then.”

“Not if you stay  _out_  of it,” Abaddon argued back.

“We can’t.    They must know we’re here with the Abyss floating up there.  We can’t leave here without the information on this cube.  We  _can’t_ ,” Anarion said.  “I say we do what we came here to do and get out like we planned.”

“Hey, Anarion, I’m all for knocking heads together, especially if they are of the Order of Shoath variety, but this isn’t the place for it.  We’ve got enough shit to deal with,” Jack said.

“I’m not suggesting we fight them. I’m suggesting we  _avoid_  them,” Anarion said.  He continued to watch his own monitors.  Still no signs of life.  “If they’re still even around.”

“You think the bugs got them?” Jack asked.

“They don’t have a big gun,” Anarion said.

“Damned straight.  I have the one and only.  Besides I didn’t finish up my alterations until last night. And unlike your fancy ship builders, I keep my plans in my head where no one else can get them,” she said.

“They might have something similar,” Dorn pointed out.

Jack snorted.  “You need experience to know what is and isn’t going to work on those bugs. I doubt they have that, because besides my crew and the Abyss’, all the Scavs who went down to Levos  _died_.”

“And I do not wish to add three more,” Abaddon growled.

Anarion switched over to a private line with Abaddon.  He knew that he had to get the Kin Commander on board with this and he could it best alone. “Abaddon.”

“Anarion, no --”

“You’re sounding like Tranis.  Anarion, no is his favorite phrase,” Anarion said, trying to inject some levity into an experience that wasn’t.

“That is a low blow, but I will take that title with pride if it keeps you safe,” Abaddon said.

“What happened with trusting me?” Anarion prodded.

“I do.”

“What happened with saying I’m the ‘best’?”

“That was before the Order was involved -- I should have  _killed_  them all long ago,” Abaddon’s voice dropped down into the arctic category.

“And you can still do that.  But we have to stay here and do this job for you,” Anarion said.

“I should never have let you go alone.  I will  _never_  do that again.  We rise or fall together.”

Anarion closed his eyes.  Though he had little desire to see Abaddon in any danger, they could really use him now.  And he didn’t want to be separated from the Kin Commander in any case.  So it was relatively easy to say, “Agreed.”

“You agree?”

“Yes, I agree.  But  _you_  have to agree to let us do this thing  _now_ ,” Anarion said.  He waited a beat and then added, “Considering you have no choice in the matter, you might as well agree.”

Abaddon let out an explosive breath.  “Dammit, Anarion.”

“Definitely sounding like Tranis there,” Anarion gently teased him.

“Wonderful.”

“I’m going to open the line again.  I just … before I do … I love you,” Anarion said.

“And I love you,” Abaddon whispered.  

Anarion switched over to the main channel.

“Did you all have a talk?  Dorn and I were making bets over who was going to win,” Jack said.

“We both lost,” Abaddon said stonily.  “What is this plan?”

“Something must have happened to them,” Anarion said.  “I can’t believe that they didn’t see us enter the atmosphere even if the spy or spies on the Abyss didn’t let them know we’d arrived.”  He check his monitors and sensors again.  “Yet there’s no movement.  Other than the exhaust, there’s no life over there.”

“It is strange that they haven’t attacked us,” Dorn said.  “Or that they didn’t hide their ship before we came.”

“Maybe they’re just waiting for us to go inside, get the info and then take it from us when we come out,” Jack suggested.

“Yeah, but would they wait on the doorstep for us like this?” Anarion asked.  “No, they would hide like Dorn said and jump us when we came out.  But they haven’t.  I think something went wrong.”

“It’s Levos.  Something  _always_  goes wrong,” Jack reminded him.

“You’re suggesting a very dangerous game of hide and sneak, Anarion,” Abaddon said.

“I don’t think we have much choice,” Anarion said.

“I’m not fond of this plan either, Abaddon,” Dorn said.  “But I have to agree with Anarion that we don’t have a ton of options here.”

“As Anarion said to me earlier,” Abaddon agreed reluctantly.

“Fantastic!  Now we’re going to have racist freaks as well as bugs on our ass,” Jack sighed. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“But you’re in?” Anarion asked her.

“Hell, yes.  The crazier the plan the better.  Your dad’s story about you is making more and more sense. I should ask him a few more before we go planet side together again. It’ll give me a clue what to expect,” she said.

Anarion grinned.  “Glad you both are on board.”

Abaddon was silent, which caused Anarion’s smile to falter slightly.  But he understood why. If he had been on the other end of the line he wouldn’t have wanted Abaddon to go on either.  He would have been screaming bloody murder to be allowed to go down there and get him, at the very least.

“Now let me plot a new course.  I hate doing this shit,” Jack began.

“No need.  I’ve got one,” Anarion said.  His mind, like it had when they had gone to the Starn, immediately had visualized all available routes and picked the best ones.  He quickly tapped the route into his comm and sent it to the others.

“Looks like we have a new plan,” Dorn said.

“Same as the old plan just with more enemies,” Anarion said.  “Follow my lead.”

Keeping an eye half on the monitors for the Kin ship that shouldn’t have existed, Anarion piloted a course that led them along the side of their current building out of visual range to a bridge that spanned between their building and the one they wished to get to.  Anarion dropped his pod down so that the bridge continued to obscure the Kin ship’s view while he flew along its length to their destination.

“There’s a smaller landing pad on this side.  Or at least that’s what the map showed.  Ah, there it is,” Anarion said as he caught sight of it hanging about fifty feet above them. “It’s on the wrong side to access Level 33 and those elevator shafts where the bugs live are right there, but …”

“It is the best avenue forward,” Abaddon was the one to finish it.

“Exactly,” Anarion said.  He swallowed and flew his pod up to the twenty-by-twenty foot landing pad.  He felt the feet of his pod gently rest on the ground before he cut his engines.  He saw Dorn and Jack’s pods do the same.  

“Turn on your receivers, boys, before you step out of those pods.  The bugs don’t like sunlight either, but if they’re hungry enough, I imagine that they might be inclined to get a little tan to snack on us,” Jack instructed.

The receiver was a small ovoid disc that was fastened to the left forearm of Anarion and Dorn’s Teklan suits.  It flashed blue as it powered up.  After five flashes, it stayed a solid blue color, which meant that it had synced up to the gun.  This, too, had been something that Jack had thought of last night.  The receiver would alert them if they went too far away from the gun.  It would flash yellow if they were at the edge of the net’s effectiveness and red if they were out of range.  

“Had too many bozos who didn’t know what a ten-foot radius was,” Jack had explained.  “Not to say that you and Dorn are so challenged, but …”

“Better to be safe than sorry,” Dorn had said as he’d taken the receiver.

“It’s exploration time!” Jack said, snapping Anarion out of his thoughts.

He saw the top of her pod lift off.  There was a hiss and a gush of white smoke then Jack hopped out in a very new and shiny red Teklan suit.  She had already personalized it by having a death’s head painted on her left shoulder.  She had the big gun held out in front of her, resting against one hip, while it was mostly supported by an elaborate web of straps that wrapped around her body.

Anarion and Dorn both followed her lead and exited their pods.  As soon as Anarion’s boots clicked against the composite landing pad, he lifted his head towards the horizon and stared in amazement at Levos’ architecture.  He imagined what it would be like with the far as the eye could see withe all the buildings lit up. Unlike Earth’s megalopolises, which looked haphazardly stuck together, Levos looked to have been designed as a planet-wide city.  All the buildings flowed into one another.  The same sensibility was clearly evident.  He wondered what it would be like to design a whole planet.

“This is what we once were capable of,” Abaddon’s voice was a murmur in his ear. “Not a race of wanderers, but one that sculpted whole planets to our will.”

“It can be that way again, you know,” Anarion said. He didn’t correct Abaddon by suggesting again that this wasn’t a Kin planet, but a planet of Abaddon’s own people.   “You could find another planet and settle it.”

“There would not be enough of us to fill even the tenth of a small planet,” Abaddon replied.  “No, it is not safe for us to settle anywhere. It would be too easy to finish what was started 1000 years ago: to wipe us out of existence.”

“We’re going to stop that from happening,” Anarion said.  “And I bet if given enough time and the Enemy’s research, Tranis could help you find a cure for the infertility.”

“Perhaps,” Abaddon whispered.

“Come, Anarion, it’s time to enter the building.”  Dorn, once again in his silver Teklan suit, gestured for Anarion to join them by the landing pad’s doors.

Jack was already kneeling down and using a small torch to cut the lock off.  Anarion hustled over to the two of them just as Jack let out a soft sound of accomplishment.  There was a clank as the cut lock fell to the ground.  

“Damn,” Jack swore.  “I was hoping to catch that before it fell.  The sound of metal hitting stone is like the dinner bell for the bugs.”

“Not much to be done about it now.  Anarion, you take that door. I’ll take this one.  Jack, shoot whatever comes out,” Dorn instructed.

Anarion and Dorn took their places, straining to pull the doors apart. Jack held the big gun ready.  Even with his helmet on and purposely tuning the sound of the gun out, Anarion could still feel the teeth-tingling vibrations it was giving off.

_It’s going to be Hell keeping near it.  I guess I’ll feel that way until I see those bugs._

The doors finally gave and slid back into their casements.   Anarion and Dorn scuttled back, expecting to see one of the swaying bug creatures come out after them.  The doorway yawned open and there was only blackness inside. Anarion switched his visor to night vision.  

“No bugs,” Anarion said with a breath of relief.

“No anything,” Dorn remarked.

The room in front of them was stripped bare of anything resembling furniture or tech. Even the light panels had been scrounged.  It was simple a large, empty rectangle with only a few touches of molding to show that it likely had been quite beautiful long ago.

“The Scavs took as much as they could from the higher levels.  Not that they were ever going to get their investments back for a few light cores and some desk units, but they had to take something,” Jack explained.  “The bugs weren’t up this far in the beginning.  Later on, they followed us all back to the surface.  The entire building was  _crawling_.”

Anarion’s shoulders twitched.  “I really don’t like bugs.”

“Looks quiet now.”  Dorn swung his head in a wide arc to check the entire room before them.  “Perhaps they retreated to the lower levels.”

“Hasn’t been anything to eat here in a long time,” she said.  “But they’ll hear us.  They’ll come.”

All three of them stepped into the room and began to head towards the single doorway to their right.  There was no door to block the way through that.  It led directly into an elevator lobby.  They had to move through the lobby to get to the atrium. There was no other way through.  

“Be as quiet as you can, Anarion,” Abaddon counseled.  “Sounds echo.  Think of the elevator shafts as large sound-carrying tubes to the bugs.”

“Got it,” Anarion said as he took point.

He placed each foot carefully as he crossed the room, aware of any debris that might crunch beneath his booted feet.    Anarion felt a trickle of sweat run down his temple. He had never felt so stressed simply walking. He half imagined that he was stepping on potential bombs. His eyes flickered back up to the doorway.  Still empty.  No sign of bugs erupting towards them.  He noted that there was almost a  _stickiness_ to the ground.

He wasn’t alone in noticing it as Dorn said, “There appears to be some sort of  _residue_  on the ground.  Could it be from the bugs?”

“I don’t remember  _sticking_  to the floor before,” Jack said.  “Gross man.”

“Could it be from the gas the bugs give out?”  Anarion asked.

“Don’t think so,” Jack said.  “Remember not to go too far ahead of me, Anarion.”

Anarion glanced down at the receiver on his forearm.  It had turned yellow for a moment.  

“You mustn’t go too far from them, Anarion,” Abaddon cautioned.  “I know that you are used to forging ahead to keep your Jump Mates safe, but not this time.”

“Right.  Hard to do,” Anarion said. “But I’ll make it happen.”

He paced himself and pulled slightly back until he was into the green according to the receiver. He was able to keep it that way until they reached the doorway to the lobby.  He hugged the wall next to the doorway and quickly ducked his head in.  A quick scan showed him that the lobby itself was merely an overlarge hallway.  There were eight openings where elevator doors had once been, but were no longer.  He could still see some of the hanging cables that the cars had run on.  Again, the area had been stripped of tech, but it wasn’t completely empty.  The entire floor was littered with what looked like black chips.  He relayed what he saw to Dorn and Jack.

“Dead bugs,” Jack whispered.

Anarion’s spine straightened and he imagined something skittering across his shoulder blades. The bugs’ carapaces were shiny and each one was between two to five inches long. He swallowed shallowly.

“Are you sure they’re dead?” Anarion cycled through all of his visor’s modes to check if the bugs were giving off any heat signature, but it all showed nothing.  

“You would know if they’re alive, Anarion.  They would be forming in front of us right now or skittering away from the big gun,” she said.  “It’s weird though.”

“What’s weird?” Dorn asked.

“The bugs typically eat their dead,” she said. “Waste not, want not.”

“Maybe they didn’t die all that long ago,” Anarion suggested.  “The Order might have killed them.”

“Maybe,” Jack said.

Anarion pushed off of the wall and light stepped into the lobby. His feet made a sucking sound and he winced every time he stepped.  The residue they had noticed earlier was thicker here. Fresher.  He was having trouble not stepping on the bugs.  He had to use his foot to move them to the side before stepping.

He tried not to look at the dead bugs or the elevator shafts.  He strained to hear any of the clattering sound he imagined the bugs might make, but there was this strange rhythmic noise.

“You’re doing fine, Anarion. You’re almost at the atrium,” Abaddon said.

“What is that sound?” Anarion asked him.

“It sounds almost like … a fight,” Abaddon said.

…

Jack and Dorn came up to flank him in a hurry at that, the three of them moving in lock-step as Anarion peered around the edge of the last wall blocking his view of the atrium.

His eyes popped open in shock at what he saw, and with his recent bouts of waking-dreams and blood-dreams had him asking: “I’m not the only one seeing this…right?”

“No,” Dorn breathed, jaw hanging loose for a moment behind the shield of his Teklan suit’s headgear.  “No, you’re not.  My lord?”

Abaddon, safe on the bridge of the  _Abyss_ , watched the screen split four-ways at an absent command, bringing up the views from each Teklan suit on his three best Ruin Jumpers – save for himself – as well as the  _Abyss’s_  blueprints of that portion of Levos.

“I see it.”  He responded, a grin tugging a bit at his lush mouth as his bold Anarion crept closer to the multi-pronged fight going on below the atrium balcony that his Jumpers were crouched on, the connection between himself and his lover stretched a bit at the distance but still letting him know that Anarion was knee-deep in plotting a course around the fight to complete the mission.  “Anarion, I would wait before completing a new route.”

“What, why?”  Anarion asked.  Granted, they hadn’t expected running into a group of Roamers – disgusting and near-mindless automatons mutated by their Enemy from the poorest humans from Earth-side slums.  But with said Roamers distracted by both trying to keep the bugs from overwhelming them on one side and fighting off what looked like a pair of suitless… _somethings_  humanoid, they would never have a better shot at getting down to the level they needed undetected.

Abaddon chuckled, more than a little wicked and sending a shiver up Anarion’s spine.

“Dorn, I don’t suppose you  _remember_  that strange friend I made when I was first found by the Kin, do you?”

“You know I don’t.”  Don answered tersely.  The memory loss was a sensitive subject for the Kin, especially since in recent weeks after immersing himself in a blood-dream at the Enemy’s insistence Abaddon was recovering more and more of his memories – including one Anarion had shared of Abaddon  _being found_  by the Kin…before they were changed into the Kin.

“His name was Loki.”  Abaddon’s voice was fond – warm even.  “And if I’m not mistaken…he’s one of the pair slaughtering the Roamers.”

…

The sound of thrusters pricked at Frey’s ears, turning his attention from the cube he was playing with.

It had been…an interesting lesson to say the least, learning to use his magic first to work or power the tech around him, and then to manipulate it.

A side-project of his own, in the down-time where Loki would give him a break from either lessons or fighting.

His Far preferred to sink into meditation, or read one of the innumerable books Loki had stored in his personal magic storage space.

Technology – even as advanced and fantastical tech as that on Levos – had only a passing interest to Loki, who was a mage down to his bones.

He could use it – and often did – if for no other reason than it helped him  _blend_  if necessary, or to sink into a character for one of his shapeshifts.

But he didn’t prefer it.

Frey, raised at Camp Half-Blood, was as used to the technology of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century in industrialized America as he was with magical artefacts and quills.

And he’d never lost that wide-eyed boy that had ridden behind Padfoot on his flying motorcycle, one of the first – and only – examples of magic married to tech that he’d grown up with.

He’d known that if  _that_  was possible, other hybridizations of the two were as well.

In the end, it came down as most things in Frey’s life did, to the matter of  _control_  and time to gain it.

On his home world, in his home universe, Frey had shorted out more than one phone, laptop, and personal computer in the quest to figure out just  _how much_  of his magical energy could be used in conjunction with the electrical energy that those items ran on.

Energy was energy after all, it was just a matter of being able to harness and use it…and hopefully  _not_  blow yourself up in the process.

Turning and standing in a smooth motion, Frey strode over to the wide window in the base he and his Far had claimed from the bugs, coming to stand by his father who had beat him there by a few seconds, watching as a ship – a real spaceship to Frey’s unending delight, and as futuristic as he could ever dream – came in and landed about a quarter-mile away.

That delight quickly turned to revulsion as they caught sight – thanks mostly to having enhanced vision – of the, well,  _creatures_  that poured out of the ship.

“Ew.”  Was Frey’s mature-and-eloquent response to the saggy and pig-like beings.  “Please tell me those aren’t the  _only_  sentient life available in this universe.”

Loki rolled his poison-green eyes.

“You know it isn’t.”  He sighed, shaking his head and snapping his armor around himself with a thought, his  _real_  armor not the ceremonial grab with its massive golden helmet.  “I’ve told you of Abaddon and his eternal quest to find a species to perfect, to make his own.  I assure you, I have not exaggerated his beauty in the least.”

“Hmm.”  Frey arched a brow, his basilisk armor wrapping around him and Magefire – a gift from his father for gaining his immortality – settling into the sheath at his hip.  “Well, shall we investigate what it is they’re after here, then?  This was one of Abaddon’s worlds, yes?”

“Yes, it was.”  Loki nodded, a spear forming in his hand.  “And I call him my friend…though I have only felt the faintest trace of him since arriving.  I fear he may be much…diminished from what I recall.”  He snarled a bit.  “Asadar might have turned out to be as perfidious as Icar feared…though I wasn’t able to stay and see the drama to its finish at the time.”

Sharing a grim smile, the two disappeared from their base, only to come into being behind the piggish – and foul-smelling – creatures as they used a strange spray of some kind to bulldoze their way through the smallest of the insects infesting the building attached to the landing pad.

Loki and Frey had left this building along for a reason, using other methods to access the levels of the planet below ground.

Sheer mass of infestation.

From what they had been able to discover over time, Abaddon and his people had attempted to reclaim technology from Levos a few years before they had arrived, Loki finding a hint of Abaddon’s aura left on a blood-stain.

It hadn’t gone well if the remains of weapons and shelled-armor were any hint.

But nearest the landing pad it had drawn the bugs from their nests below…making it a risk even Frey was hesitant to take when there was so much more to explore on Levos.

It seems, whatever these creatures were, that they did not agree.

And their spray was remarkably effective on the small bugs.

Frey moved through the shadows, Loki simply wrapping himself in his illusions to keep the creatures blind to his presence, as the creatures cut a path through the building down to an atrium with the sprayers leading the way.

It wasn’t without casualties on either side, but the… _feel_  of the creatures was as foul as their stench, making neither father nor son willing to risk themselves to save their hides.

As it turned out, the creatures were  _strong_.

Not as strong as a Jotun and a Jotun/Olympian/Wizard hybrid…but strong nonetheless, and their armor at first was heavy enough to turn away Frey’s daggers and Loki’s spear –  _at first_.

With a smirk at each other, they dropped their first weapons, then Frey unleashed Magefire and Loki a pair of daggers made of his own enchanted ice that could cut through anything short of  _uru_ -made weapons, and dove into the fray anew, with the sound of Magefire rending and clanging against the energy guns – blasters? – held by the creatures and ringing shouts thundering through the atrium as Loki and Frey pressed the creatures further and further towards the banks of elevators where the bugs were always strongest and best able to reinforce themselves.

…

It was Frey who sensed them first, even as busy taking heads and blasting bugs as he was.

Something was coming, or rather  _somethings_ , that shared a similar energy signature that was a breath of fresh air after the rancid nature of the mutated beings of Levos and his current targets.

Pure or not, the signatures all carried a tinge of violence – a predatory nature that was clear even in their auras for anyone with the power to read or the right instincts to sense.

Frey and Loki happened to have both.

A few minutes after he sensed them, he saw them out of the corner of his eye, a trio of tall figures wrapped in sleek armor from head to toe, one holding a massive gun that required straps and a harness to manage the weight of, all crouched on a balcony and watching the battle below with a dueling air of interest and anxiety.

Though they weren’t all he was sensing, which made him anxious himself to clear this atrium and likewise take refuge to regroup.

The smallest bugs were only the  _beginning_  of the horrors Levos had in store after all, and the scent of blood – even foul piggish-creature blood – was thick on the air.

In concert, Frey and Loki flung out their hands and blasted the last of the creatures back into the gaping maw of the nearest elevator, then  _leapt_ and came down in a battle-ready crouch with twin poison-green eyes glaring and weapons in hand to one side of the watching trio – the  _opposite_ side of the watcher with the big-fucking-gun.

“Hold, old friend.”  A lush, sensual voice came from a speaker on the middle watcher.  “They’re mine.”

…

Following the command of their Lord – or lover – Dorn, Jack, and Anarion each lifted a hand and retracted their helmets, the Teklan armor gliding smoothly into the rest of the suit to wait until it was needed again, revealing their faces to the pair.

Abaddon continued to reassure the slimmer of the two dangerous beings – beings that not even Dorn had seen or heard word of ever before – through the speaker on Anarion’s armored Teklan Jump suit.

“Hello, Loki.”  To any who heard, there was a definitely  _tone_  of humor laced through the Lord Commander’s voice.  “It has been a long time.”

“Indeed.”  The slimmer humanoid being said in smooth – and richly accented – Common.  “It has, Lord Abaddon.  Good to see you’re still alive and in command after nearly what – a thousand years for you?”

“Perhaps even more.”  Abaddon told them cryptically.  “These are part of my crew and Ruin Jump team: Commander Dorn, Jack the Jammer, and my Anarion, the squad Point.”

“Loki,” the slim one nodded, genial enough now that Abaddon had spoken up, the knives in his hands disappearing in a blink – or so it seemed to Anarion.  “This is my son, Frey.”

The other settled for a wary nod, still eyeing them with suspicion but sheathing his glowing –  _glowing_  – sword at his hip.

Anarion and Dorn both had laser swords, but neither of them looked quite like  _that_.

And as the pair stood, the trio following a moment afterward, Anarion realized that calling the elder – father –  _slim_  was only true in comparison to his son.

Frey was massive, taller and broader than even most Kin.

But, unless his instincts – and nose – were lying to him, these were no Kin.

Both had an undercurrent of ice and danger that made him want to back away – very slowly – while something else made him want to just drop and run.

If the Kin were predators,  _they_  were something else entirely.

A thought sure to panic the Earth High Command if they learned of the father-son duo.

“I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”  Jack interrupted whatever back-and-forth Loki and Abaddon were engaged in, nearly bouncing on her toes as she darted over to Frey as if she wasn’t toting a massively heavy and dangerous weapon.  “Not even our Lord Commander.”

“Practice.”  Frey told her, arching an amused brow, then looking with concern over towards where the bugs were starting to recover and consume the corpses of the creatures.

“Abaddon.”  Loki asked finally with exasperation.  “ _What_  for the sake of Black Heart has drawn you to Levos of all places?”

“And what were those other things?”  Frey chipped in, moving to the balcony and laying down a cover of alternating fire and ice – first blasting with fire and then freezing and shattering with ice, all the while keeping an ear on the  _bigger_  creature that had been roused by the slaughter.  Worst of all, the one he thought he heard and smelled never came alone.

“Answers.”  Anarion told them, holding up the cube for a split second.  “We need to charge this.”

“And the creatures you were fighting are called Roamers.”  Dorn supplied.  “Created from mutating human DNA and controlled by an  _enemy_  of ours.  They’re here likely to stop us from completing our mission…though what they were after as we clearly hadn’t yet arrived is another thing entirely.”

Frey looked at Loki in silent question, arching a brow.

His father shrugged.

They’d been here years already, there really wasn’t anything more to gain from staying other than some quiet time for lessons and Frey practicing culling the swarms of bugs.

“Interested in any help?”  Frey offered, cocking his head.  “Though you might want to decide  _quickly_.  Something big-and-nasty is coming.”

“Of course.”  Abaddon answered for his team.  “Loki – and Frey I would assume – are equal to any of our Jumpers in a fight.  Anarion…”

But Anarion couldn’t hear him, lost once more in a vision.

“Icar!”  He gasped, pointing towards a dark hall branching off the atrium.  “He’s here!”

“No…”  Dorn corrected, sharing a worried glance with Jack.  “There’s no one here but us.”

“A vision?”  Loki connected the dots quickly, knowing of the ability for Abaddon to have blood-dreams after drinking.  “A  _waking_  vision?”  He hummed.  “My my…how curious.”

Anarion was deaf to the by-play, already darting down to the bottom of the atrium and following at a fast clip, Loki and Frey acting in a split-second, scruffing the others by the back of their suits and popping down to follow at his heels.

“Whatever you’re after…”  Frey gave a grunt as he put up a shield of fire that would incinerate  _most_  of the insects before the others would have to worry about it.  “I hope it’s worth it.  We never went too far down below for a  _reason_.”

…

“Seriously.”  Frey grunted, ducking blaster-fire from a still vision-bound Anarion who managed – somehow – to take out exhibit a for why they didn’t go too far down: nightmare massive insects with tentacles and  _wings_  that had shielding.  Though Anarion  _also_  somehow learned the perfect sequence for downing said shield and then killing said nightmare bug while trapped in his own mind.  Frey could have  _passed_  on the multi-story fall through darkness, Frey splitting off from the others to follow Anarion and leaving Loki to escort Dorn and Jack to the cube repository and then back to the landing pad.

Of the two of them, Frey was more familiar with visions than Loki – though at least his tended to come in his  _sleep_  not trap his mind and turn him into a veritable sleep-walker.

Another shadow-step and then swing of his sword had another tentacle-head wasp falling, and then Frey coming to a halt in the doorway of wherever – he hoped – Anarion had been heading.

A decent supposition, though the body contained in what looked like a rudimentary cryo-tank was worth a raised eyebrow even as Frey turned and used his ice to block off the entrance.

There didn’t look – at the moment anyway – like there were any more bugs in the room.

And the ice would at least slow the bugs down, if not keep them out forever thanks to whatever madman engineered them.

Looking over the body – and Anarion – Frey was pleased to see lucidity in Anarion’s eyes as the other noticed him standing over the cryo-tank with folded arms and a waiting/displeased expression.

“I can’t really control the blood-dreams.”  Anarion said.  “But they’ve all included  _him_.”  Anarion pointed towards the body.  “Icar.  He fought his way down here – really, really wounded – and then put himself into cryo.  I think…”  Anarion nibbled at one lush lip.  “I think he’s Abaddon’s second – his  _oldest_ second, maybe even the same species as Abaddon, not changed to be similar like the Kin.”

“Ok.”  Frey accepted that with a nod.  At least that made a strange sort of sense.  “How do we wake him up and find out for certain?”

“Abaddon, are you seeing this?  Tell me that you’re seeing this!” Anarion cried.  

“I see what you see, Anarion.  In a way.  Is that -- that  _Icar_?”  Abaddon’s voice was strange.  There were too many emotions to sort through at that moment.

Anarion’s own feelings were all over the place from excitement to disbelief to a sort of hectic joy.  “Is he alive? I think he’s alive.  He’s looks alive.”

Anarion’s arms rose up and down as he looked at Icar floating in the tank in front of him. The other man was completely nude.  He was massive.  Nearly as tall as Abaddon and as broad.  Every inch of him was sleekly muscled.  His long dark hair floated around his head in a halo around his arrogant, yet handsome face.  His eyes were closed.  Nothing, but his hair moved.  He was still as a statue.

“I believe he is alive.  Look at the panel in front of you.  Touch it with your gloves off. It should light up and show you his vitals,” Abaddon instructed.

“How do you know?”

“It is similar to the Abyss’ controls.  I’m guessing it will work the same way.”

Anarion’s gloves retracted back into the suit.  He put his hands on the tank’s front glass panel.  The glass felt cold to the touch, but immediately the glass lit up and information scrolled across it.  The language was completely unfamiliar.  He did not have his suit’s visor to translate it.  There were graphs though there were no lines showing any movement on either.  He realized that one was the heart monitor and the other was respiration.

 Frey watched avidly, trying to pick up as much as he could from the discussion between the two – even though, given that they were speaking telepathically, they had no idea he was listening in to more than Anaraion’s half of the conversation as he spoke aloud.

It was a form of body-sharing via bond from what Frey could tell – and something unique between Anarion and Abaddon from the brief dip into the bond he’d done while chasing Anarion through the ruins of Levos, including keeping him from being knocked out by a stumble through a yawning hole down to this level of their current building.

“There are no vitals, Abaddon. It’s all flat,” Anarion’s voice took on a hint of fear.  Icar couldn’t be dead!  He was right here!  Anarion had found him against all odds!  It couldn’t end like this!

“Anarion, be calm. He is in cryosleep.  You have to -- to well,  _shock_  him back into consciousness,” Abaddon kept his voice even.

“Oh, great.  Okay. I’m a little -- I don’t know --  _emotional_  or something.”  Anarion passed a hand over his forehead.

“You have a connection to him.  I am … jealous of it,” Abaddon said.  

 Well now, Frey arched a brow.  That was interesting.  And the feeling he was getting from Abaddon’s mental touch was similar to Anarion’s – while differing from the other Kin.  Whatever the gene therapy Anarion had been treated with…it made him more like Abaddon’s species than the Kin.

Fascinating.

“He’s your best friend, you know.  You guys were together for a really long time,” Anarion said.  “His last thoughts were of you.”

“Were they?  That is … I have no memories of him.  Well, I have memories of the Enemy using his face,” Abaddon said.

“Yeah, I know.  But you’ll -- you’ll make new memories with him, Abaddon.”  

“We have to wake him to make that happen.”

“Right.  Why -- why did he do this to himself? I mean, you live forever.  What’s a thousand years to him?”  Anarion asked.

 “Perhaps a better description of most immortal beings.”  Frey interjected, as if speaking to Anarion alone, though he knew that Abaddon could hear him through the other’s Teklan suit as he’d proven earlier.  “Is as being  _resistant_  to death.  We can still be killed or die from a wound.  Just not… _natural causes_ as it were.”

“Perhaps he was injured.”  Abaddon mused – this time through the suit’s speaker, as if just now remembering that his lover wasn’t  _alone_  in the underground levels of Levos.

“He looks fine to me.”  Anarion scanned Icar’s body and saw nothing wrong with it at all. It was unblemished and gleamed like polished marble. He had a feeling that Jack would be saying a lot of lewd things right now if she could see this.

“He could have healed in the tank. Or perhaps he needed to escape the Tentacle-Heads.  They might have left him alone in stasis,” Abaddon suggested.

“Right.  Who knows!  I just wish … shit, why didn’t he leave any instructions?”  Anarion let out a pained laugh.

“Because he probably thought I would be the one to come get him and that I would know what to do,” Abaddon answered.

Anarion grimaced.  That was probably true.  But Abaddon wasn’t there. Not exactly.  And neither of them knew what to do in any event. “Yeah, true.  Guess we’ll just have to muddle along here.”

Abaddon’s voice became crisp and business-like as he said, “I believe that the toggle to your right is the one you need to touch. If it works anything like our current cryotanks, that will power up the grid beneath Icar.  It will reawaken his systems.”

“The Abyss has cryotanks?  Why?”  Anarion asked as his fingers hovered over the glass.  Why would people who lived forever need cryotanks.

“Sometimes forever can seem too long,” Abaddon answered and Anarion’s heart stuttered slightly as a shadow-eyed Frey nodded solemnly.

“So you sleep away some years?”

“Some do.”  Frey said simply.  “Other species – especially if they were  _made_  to be immortal and not changed as my father explained was done to the Kin – have the ability to section off memories, lessening the weight of the ages as they pass.” 

Anarion realized he was stalling and he understood why at that moment.  If he swiped upwards the toggle would rise.  But how far upwards?   Would it self-regulate to the correct level?   What if he did the movement too fast or too slow?  There were systems that required a more delicate touch.  Maybe this was one of them.  After all, he would potentially be waking someone from the longest sleep ever.  A body that had been in stasis might need a lot of gentleness to make it come alive again.  Anarion began to sweat. The thought of killing Icar with a wrong move suddenly seemed like a definite possibility. 

“I know you’re nervous, Anarion.  But I do not believe that they made these tanks too difficult to use,” Abaddon said soothingly.

“You mean they are likely idiot-proof?”  Anarion cracked a smile.

“And since you are by no means an idiot, you should be fine,” Abaddon paused.  

“Right.”  But still Anarion didn’t move.

“You cannot take Icar with you as he is,” Abaddon reminded him. “So it is either try to recover him now or leave him there.”

“Leaving him would be like death!”  Anarion cried.

“Yes,” Abaddon agreed.  “It would be highly unlikely that we would ever be able to reach him again.  He would be left as he is for eternity.”

“So I have to try and bring him back now or he’s dead anyway.  Okay, I can do this.”  Sweat trickled down the back of Anarion’s neck. He swiped at it angrily.

“Swipe the toggle upwards once and see what occurs,” Abaddon suggested.

Anarion swallowed shallowly. He glanced at Icar’s face, but the other man’s eyelids were still closed.  He almost looked serene.  “I hope this works.”

Holding his breath, Anarion swiped up on the toggle.  A bright white bar appeared and there was a slight whine and then a humming sound.  The liquid in the tank was clear.  The blue color came from the power grid beneath it.  As soon as Anarion flipped up the toggle, the glow on the power grid increased slightly.  The liquid in the tank shook as if a constant vibration was running through it.   

Anarion stared intensely at Icar’s body, but there seemed to be no change. “Abaddon, nothing’s happening with him.  Should I do something? Should I wait? Oh, hold on.”  Anarion realized that a white flashing button had appeared beside the toggle.  “I think it just powered it up.  To do anything I need to --”

“Push the button,” Abaddon finished.

“Push the button,” Anarion repeated.

He stabbed at the softly glowing button. There was a whirring noise.  The lights at the bottom of the tank doubled in intensity.  The liquid in the tank appeared to jump.  Anarion smelled hot electronics.  The water jumped again.  Icar’s body arched upwards.  Once.  Twice.

“Oh, Gods, am I electrocuting him?” Anarion asked, panic lacing his words.

“No, this is definitely like the Abyss’ tanks.  Don’t worry. It’s working,” Abaddon assured him.

Icar’s body arched like a bow again and again and again.  The glow in the tank began to subside until it was at its previous levels.

“He’s not moving!” Anarion cried.  

Icar’s eyelids were still shut and his body was lax now that there was no electrical current running through it. There was no signs of breathing or heart rate on the two holographic graphs.  Icar was as still as he had been before Anarion tried to wake him.

“He’s been under for a long time,” Abaddon’s voice was subdued.

“You’ve seen this before?”

“Our tanks have never failed, but …”

Anarion scanned the tank’s interface.  There was nothing to indicate that he was doing anything wrong or right for that matter.  The toggle was at its highest setting.  He pushed the button again, but Icar only arched weakly and the glow was not as strong as it had been.  Nothing showed up on the vitality graphs.

“It’s like -- there’s not enough of something,” Anarion said.  “Not enough power maybe or … “

“The technology is old. The power sources likely have degraded,” Abaddon answered.

“Yeah, but its kept him at this level for a thousand years, surely --”  

There was a sound from the other room that had Anarion’s head whipping around.  Was that movement he was hearing in the other room?  Maybe some Tentacle-Heads were creeping towards them or working to break Frey’s ice barrier – which was freaking cool by the way.  He strafed over to the door and swiped one hand over the ice, peering out through the clear-but-cold barrier.  He didn’t see anything moving, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t alone with Frey.  The cubes were still spinning in the power beams, but he saw no other movement.

“Nothing there,” Anarion said unnecessarily.

“Not yet,” Abaddon said grimly.

Anarion crossed back to the tank and stared at the floating, unresponsive body inside. The glow was definitely weaker than before he had swiped the toggle and pushed the button.  Anarion had a sickening realization that he had drained the power grid perhaps enough that it would not keep Icar’s body in the current state it was in for the near future, let alone have enough power to revive him.

“We need more juice.  The system’s failing,” Anarion said, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.

“I can help.”  Frey came, stripping off his gloves and resting his hands lightly on the console.  “Now that I’ve seen it work, I should be able to manipulate it…but it’ll take a lot of concentration.”  He warned Anarion.  “You’ll need to alert me once Icar has awakened – I likely won’t notice.”

“Okay,” Anarion nodded with a shaky breath.  “Okay, I can do that.  Should I shake your shoulder or…?”

“That will suffice.”  Frey nodded, closing his eyes and beginning to send steady streams of power coursing into the console.  “Just…don’t touch my bare skin.  I don’t want to fry your suit any worse than it is from the fall.”

“Got it.”

A high whine began that built in volume until was nearly deafening began.  It was coming from the power structure beneath the tank.  All the lights in the rectangular room flared for a moment then died as if their power was being fed into the tank.  The power grid beneath Icar seemed to blaze as hot as the sun.  Anarion raised an arm to block the light.  Then all the illumination in the room died and Anarion was left in blackness.

Save for Frey and the grid surrounding Icar.

Movement from the doorway had Anarion’s head snapping around, eyes still half-blind from the wave of light that Frey was pumping into the grid.

He had no idea how Frey was doing that – or even  _what_  he was doing other than sinking power into the cryo-tank to wake Icar.

But at the moment he had a bigger problem in the form of a trio of Tentacle-Heads that were chipping away at Frey’s ice while the other male was utterly focused on waking up Icar.

Anarion remembered the order of shots that Icar had fired to take out their shields, resting his blaster on his forearm to steady it as the first massive crack appeared in the ice-shield over the door. 

_One to the top of the head, one to the bottom left corner and one to the right, then right between the eyes so to speak.  Okay, I can do this._

Anarion took in a deep, steadying breath.  He would take out the Tentacle-Head in the lead, it was slightly leading the others and was closer to him, blocking them from easy access through the doorway once they brought the barrier down.  He felt the familiar, icy calmness come over him as he faced down death.  

“I am with you, Anarion.”

“You’re all I need.”

Anarion aimed.  He fired.

Three shots, expertly placed, left the barrel of his blaster.  He saw the shield wink out half a second before he fired the final fourth shot into the creature’s stump of a head.  He didn’t take a moment to enjoy the satisfying explosion of what he imagined was the creature’s brain or the fact that it immediately slumped to the ground.  He was onto the second creature that had sped up its assault.

The second Tentacle-Head knocked cubes off of their power pedestals as it scurried towards him like a large cockroach.  Another three shots and, again, a satisfying fourth that blew the thing away. It toppled down in front of its final brethren.  

But this final Tentacle-Head was not content to scuttle. Its black carapace split open and those terrible gossamer wings opened.  It flew towards him.  The angle was all wrong for Anarion to get in the three shots.  He hit the top of the shield and he thought he hit the left side of the shield, but he was blocked from hitting the right.  

Anarion stumbled back as the creature was almost on top of him, trying to gain more distance so he could get the last shots off.  But his back slammed into Frey at the console, knocking him free of his task.  He had no more room.   There was no where left to go. The doorway and almost all the light was blocked by the Tentacle-Head as it landed on the threshold.  

It was making this churring sound that Anarion would never forget.  The sound slid under his skin and into his brain.  It ate at his senses like acid.  He fired wildly, but the sound was driving him mad.  He couldn’t think!  He couldn’t see!  He couldn’t aim!  Anarion let out a shrill yell and tried to slam shut whatever connection he had to the Kin Commander.  He didn’t want Abaddon to feel him dying.  

_I’m sorry, Abaddon.  I’m sorry!_

_Anarion, no!_

But Anarion shut down the connection like slamming down a shade.

Suddenly, the blaster was yanked from his hand.  He thought it was the Tentacle-Head ripping it away from him and he flailed blindly to get it back.  But then the blaster was firing again.  At the Tentacle-Head not wildly.  Two expert shots.  One hit the right side of the Tentacle-Head and the shield flickered and failed.  The next had its brains splashing against Anarion’s Teklan suit.  The Tentacle-Head was about to topple on top of Anarion when someone kicked it backwards and it crashed into the other room.  

Silence fell.  Anarion’s body shook with adrenaline and the remnants of that terrible churring noise.  His body was still shaking when a figure stepped from the darkness of the tank room and into the doorway.  The person was limned with the blue lights from the cubes.  The person was naked.

Anarion let out a shrill, hysterical laugh. He knew who it was.  Icar turned his head to look at Anarion.  His arrogant handsome features were unreadable. His topaz eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

“T-thanks.  That was close,” Anarion got out.

Icar’s head tilted to the side as he studied Anarion.  There was a flash of very white, sharp teeth as Icar’s lips pulled apart.  Anarion suddenly remembered what Icar had done when he had been woken by Dorn and Dr. Phileas so long ago.

_Is he going to eat me? Oh, no.  No, no, no._

“Icar, I’m a friend of Abaddon’s,” Anarion said, hoping against hope that Icar could understand him.   

_Though how likely is that?  I’m speaking Human Common!  He’s never heard it before!_

“I don’t know if you understand me.”  Anarion let out a helpless laugh, which had those topaz eyes narrowing in consideration.  “Abaddon is my friend. He’s up in the Abyss, right now.  It’s circling this planet.  My name is --”

“Anarion Gray,” Icar’s voice was hoarse from lack of use, but it was definite, certain when he said Anarion’s name as if he had said it a million times before.  “Yes, I know who you are.  I have been  _dreaming_  about you for some time.”

Frey snorted as he climbed to his feet.

“Well, doesn’t that figure.”  He cracked as rolled his shoulders, rubbing at his stomach a bit from where Anarion’s fall back from the Tentacle-Head had jammed him into the console.  Bright topaz eyes flashed with hungered greed as they took in the sight – and the smell that lurked temptingly under the foul stench of the blown-apart insects.  “Down boy.”  Frey arched a brow at the vampiric alien.  “I’m not on the menu…unless you ask  _nicely_.”

Icar grinned, eyeing the other male appreciatively, even as he relayed Anarion’s health and well-being back to his commander.

Anarion and Abaddon were well-suited, Icar thought, based on what he’d seen of the current world from the link between himself and Anarion while he was in cryo-stasis.

Both emotional.

It was good he’d been awakened.

They would need a bit of his pragmatism to help keep them grounded, as Icar had done for his Lord Abaddon for thousands of years before Asadar’s foul plot to take “revenge” on Abaddon for imagined slights that existed only in the scientist’s mind.

Icar strode over to a cabinet against the wall, taking out a slim disk and slapping it to his chest, reveling in the feelings of the Teklan armor spreading over him, hiding his naked body from the appreciative eyes of the being at Anarion’s side.

Strange, he looked like someone his lord had befriended, a very long time ago even for immortal beings.

It was the eyes.

In all Icar’s long years, never had he met another creature with eyes that glowed such a green, save for Abaddon’s friend Loki.

“I had best get you back to the  _Abyss_  before my lord’s shrieking gives me a headache.”  Icar sighed as if put-upon as his quick hands tucked weapons and gear here-and-there, tossing a few things to his new compatriots.

“Oh so you can talk to him to…,” Anarion perked up.  “What about Dorn – you would have known him as Theos, Icar – and the others?”

Icar lifted a brow in question.

“We split up after Anarion started following your memory-trail.”  Frey summed up.  “The others – Dorn, Jack, and my father – went to charge your memory cube and recover that others they could while they had the opportunity.”  Frey cocked his head to one-side, as if listening to a voice no one else could hear…which was the truth of the matter thought the others didn’t know it.  “And my father is waiting with them back at the Roamer ship.”

“It’s called the Deathstryke.”  Anarion supplied, even as he blinked at Frey and Loki having a mental bond.  “And you can talk to him telepathically…and Icar you’re talking to Abaddon?”  He frowned with a groan.  “I shut down the connection, he must be  _frantic!”_

“He is, very much so.”  Icar snorted.  “A good match the two of you will make, with your soft fluffy feelings.  I’m blocking your link.  My lord is much too emotional right now to control what he’s broadcasting and you too young a member of our race to filter it on your end.”

“You can do that?”  Anarion asked, his sense of wonder coming through in his voice.  “You’re, you’re like us?  Why can’t the other Kin do that…”

Icar rolled his topaz eyes.

“Because the,  _Kin_ , as you call them  _aren’t_  like us.  They are  _less_.”  Icar explained patiently as he brought up a schematic of the building they were in, showing heat signatures in reds and blues that pointed to groupings.  “Food.  Nothing less.  You, I, and our Lord are the only three of  _us_  alive.”  He tapped something on the schematic.  “And your friend is right – the others wait on the landing pad.  We must go.”

“Frey.”  He introduced himself with a nod, a half-smile flirting across his mouth as he held out his hands.  “Hold onto to me and I’ll take us there.  Just don’t let go.”

…

“What do you say?”  Anarion asked later that night after they had returned – or arrived in the case of Loki and Frey – at the Abyss.  “Will you help us?”

“Hmm.”  Frey pretended to ponder the question deeply while Loki rolled his eyes from where he was snuggled – yes, snuggled – up between Icar and Jack.

Loki had left out the immortal vampiric lover when he’d been telling Frey stories of this universe.

Not that Frey could blame him.

The three children of Black Heart as he’d dubbed Abaddon, Icar, and Anarion were all quite spectacular and beautiful in their own ways…ways which had Frey’s eyes flitting between the lovers Abaddon and Anarion with more than a little interest.

“Certain danger, possible death, and a megalomaniacal villain?”  Loki snorted.  “All you need to do is throw in your luscious self and my son will help you in  a heart beat.”

“And you, old friend?”  Abaddon asked, arching a brow, but tucking away the interest Frey was showing in both himself and Anarion for later discussion with his love.

Not to mention…as far as delicious scents go, Frey was richer and more tempting than anyone or anything Abaddon had ever met before, beating out even his father.

Loki curled into Icar a bit as the topaz-eyed vampire nipped lightly at his neck.

“I’m fine with staying.”  Loki said nonchalantly, as if he didn’t have a horny – and hungry – Icar all over him.  “If Frey is.”

“Then we have an accord.”  Frey said with a husky rasp to his voice, shaking hands with Lord Abaddon.

“Indeed we do.”


End file.
